The March of the Madder’n Hellsby Mark Drolette
www.dissidentvoice.org
June 24, 2005

All
right, I think the choir’s been preached to long enough. Let’s get out of
the pews, start spreadin’ the news, and reclaim our country already.

It’s time to march on Washington. (As in the
District of Columbia. If you end up in Spokane, don’t blame me.)

I’ve often wondered what the fascist
Republican bleedership would do if, say, about a million of us showed up
on the Capitol Building and White House doorsteps one day a tad
cranky. With sore feet, no less.

But, ya know what? I’m tired of
wondering. I’m also tired of a few other things, like hearing that honesty
is “over
the top” or how views held by half this nation’s citizens are “out
of the mainstream”; of patronizingly being called a member of a “focus
group” while trying to prevent an unprovoked invasion and subsequent
occupation that have, just as predicted, killed tens of thousands and cost
billions; of watching the American corporate media give the backhand and
the back pages (if any) to news of genuine consequence; of how exercising
one’s First Amendment rights to question an insane war is unpatriotic and
“endangers
our troops”; of how having a lying, blithering idiot playing president
is somehow a good thing; of how torture is OK as long as we do it; of
having fewer rights than a corporation; of being labeled a loony for
arriving at the obvious conclusion that voting was fixed in the last (s)election
(at least); of hearing Republicans call “frivolous”
voluminous documented cases of voter intimidation and vote suppression; of
the administration regularly shoving reports and information down the
memory hole; of being tagged an anti-Semite for having the temerity to
suggest U.S. coddling of Israel and support of its brutal subjugation of
the Palestinians is simply unacceptable; of how people are poor only
because they choose to be and of how the rich have no moral obligation to
help them and, by extension, improve our society; of how necessary it is
to destroy our Constitution to protect it from those who supposedly want
to destroy our Constitution…

I’m so tired of all of that, and way, way
more, so much so, in fact, that I can think of no better way to shake some
of that fatigue than by heading eastward and not stopping till I get to
Capitol Hill. I’m lookin’ for a few (around 999,999 or so) good men and
women to join me.

What exactly, you inquire, would we do once
we get there, other than look at a bunch of monuments and stuff?

Glad you asked! The
Downing
Street Memos (DSM): you may have heard of ‘em. Well, it’s a safe bet
tens of millions of your fellow citizens haven’t, and most likely never
will, unless we take charge. That’s because there’s no way the black-hatted
whoreporate media are going to unholster these smoking guns. Don’t even
waste precious dream time dreaming about it.

A quick DSM recap, just for the smell of it:
The highly-classified British memos, leaked by a true human, repeatedly
and clearly show the Bushies were planning a Saddamectomy long before the
invasion of Iraq “officially” began in March 2003. In fact, the memos are
full of all sorts of damning things, including this line already well on
its way to becoming an instant classic (whatever that means): “But the
intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.” In other
words, Dubya lied the country into war! Can you even imagine?

Well, of course you can. That’s because you
have an organ inside your cranicular area called a “brain,” which you have
utilized for its intended purpose, scientifically called “thinking.” This
same process has no doubt led you to conclude that millions of your fellow
countrymen and women have not yet released their own brains from the
original shrink-wrapping, meaning they’re still unused and have most
likely shrunk even further; otherwise, it’d be called “expand-wrapping.”

Thus, while you, dear reader, do not need
your proof of Bushian mendacity neatly laid out, it seems plenty of other
Americans do. Perhaps it has been your fervent hope that when/if such
CliffsNotes-style confirmation appeared, 1) the corporate media would have
no choice but to feature it, 2) the country would be awash in the
beautiful, unmistakable sound of millions of pounds of fresh gray matter
being opened and newly activated, 3) the Bushies would be brought down
under pressure and rightly tried as war criminals, 4) and we could all
throw a hella big-ass party and be all giggly for a few months, at least.

It all sounds pretty cool, but there’s a
slight flaw: #1 is deader’n proper grammar at a Bush press conference.

Robert Parry wrote a characteristically
thorough
article the other day about how the media “coverage” of the memos is
looking a lot like deja pooh pooh all over again, specifically citing as
an example the snide
hit piece by the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank about
Congressman John Conyers’ (D-MI) recent patriotic attempt to get the word
out about the leaked documents.

Denied a hearing room by the ruling
Republicons in which to hold his
proceedings, Conyers and others, including 30 congressmembers, were
banished to “a room the size of a large closet”
(per Conyers’ perturbed post-Post piece
'plaint). Afterwards,
Conyers faced the ignominy of presenting his petition featuring the names
of half a million Americans and 122 U.S. representatives demanding an
inquiry into the memos to “an anonymous staff member” at “a [White House]
back entrance” (quotes are from a Scoop
report about the event).

Milbank finds this all highly amusing.

Parry correctly parallels Milbank’s
scornalism to the supremely tragic Gary Webb saga. Webb’s 1996 “Dark
Alliance” series ran in the San Jose Mercury-News and detailed
the CIA/Contra drug smuggling connection of the 1980s. Instead of
following this huge story, the “big three” of American newspapers -- the
Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and yes, the
Washington Post -- led a loud charge to personally discredit him. It
worked: Webb left the Mercury-News within a year, never wrote again
for a mainstream paper, and, finally, last December, depressed,
disillusioned, and broke, (allegedly) committed suicide.

Parry’s message is as dead on as the
“watchdog press” is just plain dead: we can’t expect salvation from the
White House Department of Propaganda, er, American corporate media. If we
want to publicize the memos and save our country, I guess (sigh) we’re
just gonna have to do it ourselves.

The basic plan is to gather (place to be
determined), march on September 6*
to Lafayette Park, rally, and then march again to the Capitol Building
steps and White House gate.

Once there, all one million of us (the ones
in the back may have to get on tip-toes and lean in a bit to hear) will
demand but two things: that Congress open hearings on the memos and that
the White House address, point by point, the memos’ assertions. If the
Bushies balk and contend the memos contain rubbish (a big “if,” huh?),
then we insist on seeing the administration’s corroborating
documentation. Remember, the absence of evidence doesn’t mean there is
absence of evidence. Or whatever. (Whenever I paraphrase or try to quote
Donald Rumsfeld, or even remember we occupy the same planet, it just
reminds me again of what a total idiot he is. Also.)

Once the hearings start, we stuff the
hearing rooms. We are not going to march and then go home. I don’t think
there’s much interest in re-creating the squeal, the loud fury repeatedly
expressed at the boisterous anti-war marches millions of us attended,
events which, though certainly well-meaning, turned out in the end to be
little more than feel-good exercises that disappointingly resulted in us
leaving far more litter than legacy.

Nope, this time we’re stickin’ around. And
we’re not going to sit on our hands and be polite little listeners, no
sir. Every time the Repigicans start burying the truth or pulling a
Sensenbrenner, we will shout them down. Then we’ll be arrested, and in
will come the next relief crew. We will do this for as long as it takes.

What’s the worse they can do: kill us? Hell,
no! (Not that they won’t hesitate to punch our tickets, ‘cause that’s
no problema, senor, not for these folks for whom slaughtering 100,000
human beings is of zero concern. No, the worse thing they could do would
be to torture us first [legal in America now, ya know], then kill
us.)

This actually brings us to a very serious
matter (which is why, as you can see, I now wear my most sober game face):
Expect intimidation. Expect arrests. Expect violence. Not from us, but
from the Bush police state police who will all be sporting the latest in
robocop thingamabobber head-to-toe fear-gear and just itchin’ to bust our
brain-containing noggins. (Could be an envy thing.)

I joke, but this is no joke. Reclaiming
one’s country is typically not all beer and skittles, or even
mulled wine and salted fish. (See: Ukrainian election protests,
sustenance.)

Some friendly dos and don’ts for the whole
process:

Keep it simple. This
is key, critical, essential, indispensable. In other words, it’s kind of
important. Please, oh please, let us have no signs or speeches
about, for example, freeing the rainforest or ending the clear-cutting of
Mumia Abu-Jamal. This is a pet peeve of mine that still simmers long after
attending my last anti-war march/rally. Do you know how entertaining or
helpful it is listening to harangue after harangue coming from the stage
on 37 disparate subjects all with the same conclusion, that the white man
is responsible for all of the world’s ills? Not very. Granted, it is
pretty much true, and, yes, all evil flows from a central evil and
everything’s all interconnected and we’re all one and…so, all right: we
get it already! Let’s cut the chatter and hop to the matter. Of course
there are other legitimate grievances in the world, but splintering the
message and boring one’s listeners to tears are not -- repeat, not
-- effective ways of getting results. Focus, folks!

One city only. This
will all take place in Washington, D.C. only. There will be no
“sympathy marches” in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, or Butte,
Montana. Why? Because, as much as those cities are fine locales in their
own rights, none houses our national legislative houses or the current
louse of a White House houseboy. Nary a one! Now, if between this
article’s publication and the assigned date of the march, America’s seat
of power has indeed been relocated to, say, some town in Idaho, then,
sure, we’ll all head there instead and I will gladly offer you an apology
and even a fine potato.

We are our own media.
This is when we demonstrate, and finally establish, the power of our
media. We will cover this event the way it could never be covered by
anyone else -- and certainly won’t be, since the whoreporate media will
ignore and/or disparage our march and subsequent activities as only they
can. No matter. It’s long been apparent that the only successful way to
deal with their complicit dishonesty is to overtake them, not reform them
or try to get them to “see the light,” which is really sorta like trying
to somehow persuade Darth Vader to adjust his attitude. This is the moment
to help set their dimming sun even further while making ours shine
bright. (And also avoid hackneyed phrases like that one at all
costs.) We’ll take pictures and write stories and shoot lots of video and
stuff, and we will tell the world.

Don’t let up.
For the foreseeable future, we shall keep pounding away at the slumbering
public’s unawareness by pounding away on our keyboards the following:
“DOWNING STREET MEMOS, DOWNING STREET MEMOS, DOWNING STREET
MEMOS.” Granted, this may become a bit tedious after a while, but, hey, if
I can survive the boredom of watching my somnolent San Francisco Giants
sleepwalk through yet another loss, then surely we can all bear the
dullness of working the DSM into every story we produce. (I’m toying with
the idea of entitling all future pieces “Downing Street Memos I,” “II,”
“III,”
and so on. That way, I get it out of the way early and don’t forget.)

Stay committed. If
you knew who stole your car, would you just give up after a few days and
walk dejectedly back home if the thieves refused to give it back? Of
course you wouldn’t. You’d devise a way to get it back and then do
it. Well, America is our car, and it’s been ripped off by the Bush
freedomjackers who’re driving it around right now big as you please,
running over everything in sight, leaving the mess for us to clean up, and
even sticking us with the outrageous gas and repair bills. I say we don’t
leave Washington until we get the keys back. To apply the brakes on the
car analogy for a moment (you’re welcome) and just outright beat the point
to death: We must see this thing through. Once we get our hearings in
Congress, we do not leave. We watch those duplicitous GOP bastards like
hawks and beat the drum when they stray. We also dog the administration at
every turn. Maybe one of us has connections and can wangle a White House
press pass so Little Snotty Scotty McClellan can finally hear what a real
question sounds like, and then we can all watch his head explode. (I think
some shaved-domed dude named Jeff something-and-other may have a used pass
for sale. Someone should check either eBay or UnderwearMarineLife.com.)

So there’s the basic idea. Yes, it’s a
little light on details, but, remember, this is only the first volley and,
besides, it’s all a (big) group thang. This is a good spot to mention
this: I’m nobody’s MOOL (March Overall Organizing Leader). Case in point:
I was ill-advisedly put in charge of our last office potluck, and we ended
up with a bowl of chips and 23 different desserts. Coordinating activities
and directing scores of different groups and people (let alone 24
co-workers; that’s right, someone ate for free) is not my strongest suit.
In fact, I don’t even have a suit like that in my closet. So we’re lookin’
for one mighty fine organizer.

But I am ready, willing, and able to help
“doers” connect with one another to help it all come to pass. I have a
public voice; I will use it as much and often as possible. You may contact
me at
mdrolette@comcast.net with any solid information or suggestions you
have about making this baby go. I will answer as many e-mails as I
can. (Please, no spam.)

I’ve not a clue what sort of reaction this
column will produce. The resultant buzz could be equivalent to the total
amount of sense Dubya has ever made, or it could catch fire. Time will
tell; in the meantime, I humbly ask that you forward this piece to the
many fine folks you know, and even to those you don’t.

Of course, properly executing this plan
means experiencing genuine travail. So, I must ask: What’s America worth
to you? More germanely, so we don’t end up more Germanly (WWII vintage),
what are America’s values worth to you? Your time, your job, your
money, your freedom?

Your life?

These are questions I’m certain we’ve all
sincerely asked ourselves. I recently told a friend who knows I’m planning
to visit Costa Rica in November and move there for good next June that, if
this article “hits,” I could’ve just shot my dream of watching beautiful
sunsets while drinking coconut milk and listening to howling monkeys right
en la pie.
I also told him I could avoid such a worry by just not writing this
column.

But the fact is, I really can’t do that
because I’m not “built that way,” and the many messages I’ve been
fortunate enough to receive from readers for some time now solidly confirm
I am far from uniquely constructed.

To be perfectly honest, though, I’m not
really all that crazy about marching on Washington, nor do I truly wish to
publicly commit to sleeping in a park for who knows how long. I also don’t
want to endure heat or cold or hunger or thirst or discomfort for long
periods of time, or skip bathing more often than I (or others) would
prefer (though I do think rotating “b.o. squads” in and out of
congressional hearings may have its advantages), or devote weeks of my
life working on minute details, or face getting beaten or arrested or
imprisoned or even killed, or lose my job, or spend lots of money, or talk
to reporters, or make speeches, or attend meetings (personally, the worst
thing imaginable; I hate meetings), or have the whole thing turn
out to be a big bust -- or not be able to go to Costa Rica.

But “wanting to” doesn’t have anything to do
with it anymore, if it ever really did. I’ve had it up to here with
having had it up to here. I am fed up -- thoroughly, utterly, completely,
indisputably, irrevocably, totally fed up -- with feeling hopeless,
helpless, demonized, disgusted, and enraged. Especially with
feeling enraged, and it’s way past time to fully return that wrath, plenty
of questions asked, right back to its manufacturers. When I saw
Senselessbrainer gavel that hearing closed on C-SPAN the other day after
delivering his putrid little sermon and then walk out along with the rest
of his fellow fascists in a breathtaking display of contempt for the
entire democratic process, I just about jumped through the screen. How
dare he. How dare any of them. Just who in the name of sweet liberty
do they think they are? We are not chattel to be cowed, privileged to do
their bidding; the government is ours, and we are coming to take it
back.

I assume at least some of this may strike a
chord; otherwise, you’d likely not spend one more second reading it or
doing what you and so many of us have all been doing in our own ways for
what seems like forever: trying to stop the all-out assault on America’s
true soul, the Constitution and values contained therein, that the Bushies
have so far prosecuted so sickeningly well. It is this moment now, while
there is a crack in the façade, that we may have our best shot at not only
halting such destruction, but also finally wresting our country back from
the madmen who now control it.

Believe me, one million mad as hell people
can make a fairly deep impression -- in more ways than one.

One voice, one message, one million people.

Stay tuned. I will be writing on details as
they develop. In the meantime, start informing the choir of something it
will finally love to hear, and rejoice in singing about: our freedom.

* Why September 6? Well, that’s the day
Congress gets back from its five weeks-long summer break. (Nice work if
you can get it, huh? If interested, apply to Diebold, Triad, or ES&S.) I
just figured it’d make more sense if those to whom we present our demands
are actually there when we present them. Congress is also in session from
July 11 through July 29, but that may not give us enough lead time. (Then
again, I don’t think the Ukrainians or Bolivians needed a whole lot of
advance notice.)